85 



Bougainville, Cook, and Bligh % Bougainville 

 carried it to the Isle of France, whence it passed 

 to Cayenne, Martinique, and, since 1792, to 

 the rest of the West India islands. The sugar- 

 cane of Otaheite, the to of those islanders, is 

 one of the most important acquisitions, for which 

 colonial agriculture is indebted to the travels of 

 naturalists. It yields not only one third more 

 of juice than the creolian cane on the same 

 space of land ; but from the thickness of it's 

 stem, and the tenacity of it's ligneous fibres, it 

 furnishes much more fuel. This last advantage 

 is important in the West Indies, where the de- 

 struction of the forests has for a long time 

 obliged the planters to use the canes deprived of 

 their juice, to keep up the fire under the boilers. 

 But for the knowledge of this new plant, the 

 progress of agriculture on the continent of Span- 

 ish America, and the introduction of the East 

 Indian and Java sugar, the revolutions of* St. 

 Domingo, and the destruction of the great sugar 

 plantations of that island, would have had a 

 more sensible effect on the prices of colonial pro- 

 duce in Europe. The Otaheite sugar-cane was 

 carried from the island of Trinidad -f~ to Carac- 



* See my Tableaux de la Nature, torn, i, p. 74 ; Nov. Ge- 

 nera, torn, i, p. 181 ; and a note of Messrs. Thouin and Du 

 Buc in the Voyage d la Trinite, vol. ii, p. 357—362. 



+ By the care of Messrs. Don Simon dc Majora, Martin, 

 Iriarte, Manuel Ayala, and Andres Ibarra. 



